


Don't Say Goodbye

by cachaemickChymist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Airships, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Sky Pirates, Using dancestor names again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 16:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10575360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cachaemickChymist/pseuds/cachaemickChymist
Summary: A relationship between a sky pirate captain and a legislacerator couldn't last forever, but neither of them want to let go.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My (late) contribution for Homestuck Rarepair Week. This may end up as part of a longer series of sky pirate Ancestors, but I don't know yet.

Latula had circled the airship several times before the gangplank extended. She had given a time she’d be visiting, but the captain had forgotten or found herself entangled in something else. As usual, she thought as Pyralspite landed. The metal strip creaked under the weight of the huge dragon as she dismounted, and she wouldn't be surprised if it broke soon.

Hell, she could say that about the entire ship. The captain herself called it a flying junkyard, though it wasn't doing too badly for having been shot out of the sky and left to rot for sweeps before someone could fix it up, and probably being stolen from the Empress's fleet even before that. It changed hands until it reached the Signless and his followers, allowing them to travel from town to town, preaching about a new social order. Now it was an infamous sky pirate ship, renamed "The Sunrunner" and covered in wiring that allowed the ship to pilot itself. That addition helped, since the captain had nobody to help her fly it.

She knocked on the main hatch, hand stinging when she pulled away from the hard metal.

"Thanks, Pyralspite. You can go," she said. The dragon flew away just as The Sunrunner's captain opened the door.

Beyond her, you could see even more wires, some sparking. A large clock chimed the quarter hour. Hm, that was new. Probably unpawned stolen goods. It would be sold and the money given to needy lowbloods soon enough. The captain fit the decrepit airship quite well, frankly. She always looked nice from a distance, but now you could see the grease and wear on her clothes, and the expression of sorrow always on her face. She had a tattoo of that heretical symbol, the Sufferer's irons, on her shoulder. Latula knew that it covered up a symbol of a different kind, a blue Scorpio sign.

She wondered what she had gotten herself into. A runaway slave turned sky pirate who openly followed the Signless (beyond that, was one of the original followers of the Signless) wasn't exactly matesprit material for someone like her. Yet they'd been quadrantmates for a while. So long that her superiors had started to catch on.

"Finally here to arrest me?" Porrim asked. It was almost a joke between them now.

"Technically, yes. I already have the story of how you got away. I was so close this time, but the clever pirate outwitted me again."

Porrim laughed and let Latula in. She had plenty of new decorations, from paintings to weapons, all to be sold. The air smelled of dust and something freshly baked.

"What did you do, raid a merchant ship?"

"An Orphaner's, actually," Porrim said. Latula wished pirates she was actually arresting admitted to their crimes that easily, "Now, would you like some tea?"

"Of course. Did you take any interesting blends from the Orphaner?"

"Actually, I did. I wasn't thinking I'd serve it, but I took an interesting white tea. They only started exporting it this sweep," she said as she headed for the kitchen, "You can wait in the sitting room. This shouldn't take long."

"I'll stay here. It's been a while since I've seen you," Latula said. Doing nothing while Porrim made her tea never quite felt right, like their relationship was not that of equals. Besides, they may not see each other again for a while. She should at least make small talk.

"Yes, I have missed you. How has your job been? Do you have cases other than mine?"

"Yes. I've been very successful in apprehending petty criminals. However, I think I'll be switched to the Marquise's case within the perigree. You'll probably have a different legislacerator on your tail soon, and a less sympathetic one at that."

Porrim placed a heavy iron kettle on the stove, not quite focusing on the task at hand or on Latula. She let out an almost inaudible sigh.

"So I shouldn't expect you here for tea again?"

That news could have been broken more tactfully, she thought. After all, Porrim didn’t have a crew, her son had been killed, and the only thing keeping her from absolute isolation was the legislacerator sent to arrest her. Latula stayed silent for a few seconds, feeling the sway of the crewless airship and hearing the buzz of all those wires.

“I have good news as well, but I’ll tell you when we actually sit down. Anyway, how have you been? I see business has been going well,” she said once the silence got too suffocating.

“The raid on Dualscar’s ship was a success, and I got the information I need from him. I think the time has come to move on to better things.”

Latula wasn’t sure what that meant, only that it couldn’t be good. She had seen Porrim in a state of grief-induced rage before, vowing over and over again to kill Darkleer, the Grand Highblood, and even the Empress if she could. What if she planned to actually do it?

“So I shouldn’t expect you to be here for tea again?”

“Quite possibly. I’m sorry, love.”

Her throat tightened with suppressed tears at the thought. She hadn’t wanted to think about how this ordinary seeming tea may be the last time seeing her matesprit alive. Why did she bring it up in the first place? The tea kettle started steaming before she could ask about what “better things” meant.

“White tea, you said?” Porrim gave her usual fake smile, a not-quite-wholehearted attempt to dispel the melancholia haunting the atmosphere.

“If that’s what you want.”

Latula watched Porrim open the metal tin, filled with rare and expensive leaves. She poured a spoonful of them into the teapot and covered them with not quite boiling water.

“Everything else is set up in the sitting room. I trust you remember where that is?”

She did not, since every claustrophobic hall on this ship looked the same, and even more so under the broken lights that left her effectively blind. She just waited until Porrim picked up the teapot and walked to the sitting room, and followed her soft glow through the dark ship and into the surprisingly well-maintained room. Like everything on airships, it was a little cramped, but there was room for a small table (about four people could sit at it comfortably, but there weren’t four people on this ship anymore) and some chairs. More importantly, the walls had been replaced with giant windows, giving a perfect view of the sky.

If there was one thing Latula loved about airships, it was the view. The sky blurred while she rode Pyralspite, but here she could see the clouds beside her and the endless sea of smog below. The tea table had been set up with careful attention to detail, though the plates were stolen from several different ships and didn't match. At least the colors looked nice together.

But the food was the best part. Porrim had created an elaborate display of crystallized fruits and flowers, bonbons, little cakes, and cookies with red jam in the middle. How did she manage to make all this on her own anyway? Latula at least remembered some semblance of etiquette and sat down before taking food.

"So, your good news?" Porrim asked as she finished pouring her guest's tea and turned her attention to her own cup.

"Right. I was able to find Meulin Leijon. She currently lives in a cave near a smuggling operation's safe house. She was one of your crew members before you were all arrested, right? The second mate?"

Porrim's eyes filled with tears and she smiled. Latula hadn't seen a real smile from her in quite some time, though she often had a fake one that only showed how miserable she was. She took a careful breath, like a half-hearted attempt to keep herself together.

"My word...you found her? Can you tell me where, exactly?"

"Out in the woods. I marked a map with the location,” she said as she placed the folded paper in the center of the table, “In addition to the map, I added a floor plan of the Battleship Condescension like you asked. You're actually going to do it, aren't you?"

Had this been a proper tea, like how the skydwellers did it, she would never have brought it up. Heavy conversation wasn't suited for the tea table.

"Yes. All that's left is to acquire a temporary crew. We will infiltrate the ship through the supply transportalizers, since stealing one of the space fleet's ships would force me to travel in a Helmsman-powered vessel. It makes this operation riskier, but I will not cause that sort of suffering to another. From there, we will ransack the Condescension and take its power source."

"You're freeing Mituna," Latula said, a weight lifting from her chest, but not fully, “Thank goodness. I was afraid you were going to try regicide.”

She had seen her do some daring things in her time as a pirate, but she didn't think Porrim would go this far. She could safely rob Dualscar and free Mindfang's slaves, but could she actually rescue the Empress's Helmsman? She picked at a crystallized yellow rose, wondering if this had any chance of success.

"Mituna's suffering in there, and it's my fault. I failed to protect him, just as I failed to protect my son. He will not be punished for my weakness while I stay here in relative comfort," Porrim said. She let out a shaky breath, trying to keep the composure expected of her even as she blinked jade tears from her eyes.

Latula got up, leaning against the table a little as she adjusted to the ship's movement. She walked over to Porrim and hugged her, table manners be damned.

"Just come back alive, okay?" she said, running her fingers through her matesprit's hair in that way she seemed to like.

"I don't know if that's what fate has planned for me, but I will try. I can't save Mituna if I'm dead, after all."

Latula tugged on Porrim's arm a little and they both fell to the wooden floor, limbs tangled. Hardly proper at all, but it wasn't like anyone was around to see.

"What's this about fate?" Latula asked between kisses all over Porrim's face, "You aren't the Marquise. Make your own damn fate, and make sure it involves coming back to me."

She chirped when the pirate kissed her lips, face going teal at the embarrassing sound.

"Only if you make sure your fate involves seeing me again, even if you get reassigned."

They settled into each other's arms, and time felt slower. Like maybe, if they stayed like this, they would never have to part. Oh, but they would, and their next meeting may not be for sweeps.

Latula felt a hand intertwine with hers and another against her back, holding her tight against Porrim's body like she was the only thing she had. Actually, that was about true, unless her attack succeeded and she got her old friends back.

“I’ll miss you,” she said. They kissed again, desperation for closeness replacing tenderness, though no amount of kissing would make losing Porrim (even for a few months, to say nothing of a lifetime) okay.

But as she had suspected, they would never see each other again. She only inaccurately predicted which one of them would die.


End file.
